#Living

Have you ever really taken time out to look back upon your life?

I don't mean with regret.  I mean with an impartial eye, as if your life is a movie you had no knowledge about.  Something you turned on in a moment of boredom, a fit of desperation.  Have you ever realized how interesting the things you have gone through could be? Or worse, would you be bored?

I always felt that my life was a series of disastrously hilarious moments.  I've fallen, I've risen, and I've come back for more each time.  The one thing I can say is I do not regret.

Some of the people around me don't live this way.  They seem content to wallow in their own misery.  To let the proverbial bull run by while sitting on the sidelines, watching it go.  They don't move forward but rather dwell in a world where they can remain comfortable, safe, and completely self absorbed.  I guess this is something that fascinates me and saddens me at the same time.  I want to see the people around me succeed because they push themselves outside of their comfort level.  Smash those walls.  Break the conformity.  Live well. Relish in the awkward.

Back in 2003 I took a spur of the moment vacation to Pakistan.  I felt this pull to travel all the time throughout life, and with everything going on in the media about terrorism and my homeland I felt that I needed to escape there and see for myself.  I was terrified. My thought process was that I would get whisked away by some masked strangers (not ninjas or jabbawockeez, which would be incredibly cool and not terrifying) and end up on a CNN looped broadcast while Wolf Blitzer sat smugly, twirling his bowtie. But I leapt without looking and entered a world I honestly thought existed only in my dreams.

Pakistan is everything you DON'T see in the media.  The people are gracious and welcoming.  The country itself is beautiful and I really can't think of an adjective that fully encompasses the landscape of this place.  There are mountains. Rivers. Deserts.  Streams.  Forests.  It's a gorgeous country with so much natural beauty you tend to forget the political landscape and religious tumult going on around you.

This trip was different because it was a landmark of sorts.  I was celebrating by traveling abroad solo for the first time (of course, I would pick a country so entrenched in turmoil to visit solo, like a boss) and I felt absolutely liberated.  Also, I had planned to sneak into the country without the fanfare of my extended family.  I wanted to see things on my own terms, without the obligation to have tea with everyone, their mother, their mother's mother, and so on until I was basically steeped in a mugful of chai with elaichi. I decided on the plane that I would stay away from the larger cities for the most part, and travel to Northwest Frontier Province, a sort of homage to my father's days in the army.

The Northwest Frontier Province is a very rough area.  There is no wealth among the people, most are nomadic and very deeply involved in their religion.  So imagine my surprise when my Americanized ass was warmly welcomed by strangers everywhere.  I would have thought that the red streaked hair, tattoos, and laughable language would have instantly gotten me tossed into an underground cave somewhere but instead I was greeted with love from strangers.

My cousin and I traveled with a group of guides (who carried machine guns, but that's a story for a different day) and horses to carry us across the more rough terrain.  We lived in canvas tents for a week, bundled up against the harsh mountain wind in sweaters and blankets and adrenaline. We spoke with children in the villages and many of them were as perplexed with the terrorism ideology they were being branded with as we were. I was proposed to three times (and found out my net worth in the land was 5 camels, two oxen, and 800,000 rupees, holla!)  Most importantly though, I found in myself something I didn't think existed: strength.

By the end of my trip I realized I could do things I never imagined.  I climbed.  I fished.  I managed without running water, or a proper bathroom.  I didn't need makeup, hair products, or fashionable clothes.  That trip was me in my most basic form; humanity bleeding outward.  It is an experience I think about every day, because without it I'm not sure of the person I would be today.

So my dears, the moral of this story is experience every opportunity you can.  Challenge yourself.  Live without warning.  You don't know what experience in your life will change you forever.  Get off the couch.  Be the best version of yourself that you can be.

Love.

Live.

Inspire.

transportation at Jheel Saiful Muluk

a woman's work-naran valley

the view we woke up to. not even kidding. amazing. kaghan.